NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18266, 27 December 1924, Page 9

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

GAMES. "Big Bill ' Pilden lias probably writ- ! ten more books on his game than any other champion, and a seventh volume has'now appeared; "Tho Cbmmonsense of Lawn Tennis." It. is impossible fivr any writer on a particular sport to avoid a great, deal of.repetition, but tho iorers of tennis, liko the lovers of golf, do not mind repetition, and indeed an> wise in not minding. But Tilden is so keen an enthusiast, and is so eager to make others like tennis and improve their game tha,t he newr becomes monotonoay. Ho lias also a gift often denied to the champion who takes hi* pen in hand: he can express himself with perfect clearness. As a result, his books have probably helped 1000 tennis players for every golfer who has benefited from Braid or Vardon or Taylor or Herd or Tollcy. His new book progresses rapidly from tips for the dub to advice for the good player, and the author's career in international tennis yields some absorbing chapters of reminiscence and instruction. There is a fine collection of photographs. (London: Methuen.) Opinions differ concerning the progress which Mali Jong has made in New Zealand, but there are probably enthusiasts enough to make very welcome Mr Henry Peterson's book. "Mah Jong Simplified."' This is quite the best book on the game which wo have seen. It not only explains the p;amo clearly, and gives more useful advice than most other books, but it contain* some interesting explanations of the ritual which most players accept as arbitrary and eooentric conventions. Mr Peterson has played Mah Jong in the East for many years, and has acquired some very strong prejudices. But he insists that the West. has greatly improved the game, which, in its strict Chinese form, is a little arid. The West has made some changes. however, which he gre&tly dislikes, especially in the scales of scoring, and in the u&e of the lower-cards. His book is made df-lightt'ul by his knowledge and enthusiasm, and valuable by its inclusion of what players in New Zealand have long desired, namely, a standard &efc of rules. (London: Thornton Butterworth.) The latest addition to bridge literature is "Auction Bridge Do's and Don't's," by Mr A. E. Manning Foster. It is a, small book, quite a lightweight beside the large treatise by tho other Foster, but it is packed with good matter. The oddest thing about bridge is that it should still be changing. Last year's conventions and dogmas are likely to be thrown aside this year, with very good reason. Actually ■what is happening is that the principles of bidding and play are being clarified, and in this little book the principles of good play are made clearer arid more reasonable than they have hitherto been. (London: Methuen.) CHRIST AND AUSTRALIA. If our title is challenging, the author of "Evangelism in the Australian Churcli" invites, and, we are s&re, welcomes it. The book contains six lectures delivered by the Bishop of Gippsland under the Moorhouse bequest to the Diocese of Melbourne, his choice of subjects having been (1) The Defence and Confirmation of the Christian Faith, as Declared in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds; (2) Questions Bearing Upon the History and Authority of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and | New Testaments; and (3) The Social A&pects of the Christian Faith in their Widest Application. The author is careful to point out that he has hot attempted, as "Bishop of a rough country diocese, whose life is mostly spent, in train, motor-car, or buggy," to make a contribution to criticism or history, but has chosen instead to say plainly what appears to him as a son of the Australian Cliurcli to be an. immediate danger.' And he certainly does speak plainly. The danger of the Church—or so it will be supposed by laymen—he conceives to be .the Church itself. The Institution is increasing, but prophecy is decreasing. And "because the Institution always wins unless something bold and definite is done to vindicate tlie liberty Off the spirit," what is required is "a movement within the Institution which will exhibit the Eternal Gospel in its jiving power.'' The Bi&hoo. in briefs is determined to know "none other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified," and laymen < at any rate will count it to him for righteousness that he has a wholesome contempt for such abstract studies as the psychology •of religion, and so on. The psychology in which he is really interested is th» psychology of conversiop—of courser without the name—and he does not hestitat© to commend the Salvation Army's insistence upon the penitent form. A reviewer mnst refuse to say whether he is old-fashioned or new-fangled. (Sydney: Angus and Robertson. 1 ) THE INCAS. The publishers claim for "The World of the Incas," a 200-page volume by Otfrid Von Hanstein, that it brings that ancient realm before as "with aH the charm of a romance." The truth is rather that a romantio story has been ' retold by an author concerned more with social theories than with the 1 simple facts of history—«o far, of course, as those are still ascertainable. It is not suggested that the facts are distorted, or that essential features in the story have been dropped' where thev do not harmonise with Hie theory with which the narrator set out. The book leaves a distinct impression of earnestness and of scholarly and industrious honesty, but it is plainly a study in Socialism—the secondary title is "A Socialistic State of the Past"— rather titan in the life of people as people, or in the rise and fall of a nation. Even so. hawerafr, it is, a fascinating study, and for fhe general reader will prove all the more attractive for its lack of completeness. "Whoever sits down to tell the story of 4 people ui 200 pages must drew • tail altogether, and ask the reader to accept his foundations without evi- , dence, or he must risk losing the, wood among the trees. It is not a reproach to the present author that he follows the first method, but it would be a reproach to a reviewer not to point out that it is not history which is served up, but social philosophy. Tt is hardlv necessary to add that the work is a translation from the German. (London: Allen and TTnwin. Ltd.) SAYINGS OF THE CHILDREN. One of tbe deserved aooaeeses of 1916 was the charming book in which l*dy Glenoonoer, who had bfcan Pamela Tennant, and who is now Lady Grey, set down the charming things which .oame from her children. 'The Savin#? of the Children" has just been reissued, with additions, and it is just bo muoh more entrancing as it is larger than ivhen it fxiejnally appeared. Every one of that kwge company who know the 1918 bewfc lias his preferences amongst the quaintly wise and illuminating sayings of "One" and "Two" and "Three" and "Poor" and ''Five," but there are things in the additions as seductive as any of the earlier favourites. "Five" has a memorable word for an evening frock: "One of those very evening

(Ooßtinaad at foot of n»t Mimas.)

dresses, you, know;' just a. bulge of illusion, and A rose. And tbe Mm Brown episode-is sublime. "♦I dop'fe like Mrs Brown.' 'Why don't you ttke Mrs Brown?' 'For a re—on/ flu# waft rather intriguing. So much •> that his Mother felt she must fpqbe for the oeuee. 'What w the reason?' she asked; arid he said, tin Brow? iM the reason.'" (Oxford: Basil Blackwell.) NOTES. Two particularly interesting additions have been made to the wonderfully fine series of "Percy BoprinU." One is "The Poetry of the AntiJacobin," reprinted from the first collected edition of 1799, and edited by Mr L. Rice-Oxley. Such'. a volume has long been delsired by studeate of satirical verse and of political conditions at the end of tne eighteenth century. Of Mr Rioe-Oxley's editing*!*' is sufficient to bay that it is as skilful and careful as that of Mr Bratfc Smith. The'other volume is one whieb will be now to most readers—a reprint of David Rowland's translation of the sixteenth century Spanish romance of Lazarillo de Tonnes—with an introduction by Professor J. E. V. Orofti. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell.) In recent years Messrs Collins and Sons have printed some uncommonly fine stories of crime and detection, and they continue to specialise in this quite .admirable form of fiction. "The Rasp, "by Philip Macdonald, is not nearhr mr good as "The Cask," by -Mr WifcCrofts, but it is a mystifying tale, which hangs together well. The reader suspects the murderer earjy in the book, but tha denouement IJL unusual, for the striking device through wniek the confession is obtained. (Ix>noon: Collins. Through Whitcombe and Tombs.) Mr E. V. Lucas needs no bush. All one has to do is to announce twioeor three times a year his latest collection of bright and entertaining sketches. One sometimes feels in "Encounteni and Diversions" that E. V. » wearm; just a fraction thin, but there is «officient in his new collection to make his admirers well content, (fcmdonj Met-bueu.) The latest, of the MeGlusky books (A. G. Hales) is "MeGlusky the Sea Rover," and here, for a ehasge, tlMt hero is a ship's bos'a. It is impossible, and in .any case unnecessary, to say? anything about it except that it it Hales at his ordinary,, and literature afc something near its worst. But aayout who goes to Hales for literature do* serves what ho gets, and those wh* can't enjoy him for other reasons don Hi deserve any reerestiou in print at aIL (London: Hodder and Stooghton.) j